Template:Did you know nominations/Carl Diggler


 * The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as |this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:56, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Carl Diggler

 * ... that Felix Biederman and Virgil Texas, writing as fictional journalist Carl Diggler, correctly predicted more 2016 presidential primaries than Nate Silver's statistics blog FiveThirtyEight?


 * ALT1 ... that fictional journalist Carl Diggler correctly predicted more 2016 presidential primaries than Nate Silver's statistics blog FiveThirtyEight?


 * Comment: I'd like to make a date request for November 8, the date of the US presidential election, if possible. Biederman and Texas began writing as Carl Diggler in October 2015, the bulk of Diggler's articles are satirical commentary on the election, and Diggler's work been relevant to the broader discussion about how the 2016 US presidential election has been covered by the media, as I hope the hook makes clear.

Created by Brandt Luke Zorn (talk). Self-nominated at 07:57, 14 September 2016 (UTC).


 * Comment only Shorter ALT1 added. Edwardx (talk) 20:22, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks — I considered this wording but was unsure if it would be clear that real people made the predictions and outperformed 538 in real life, rather than seeming like the entire contest was also fictional. Now that it's not so late at night, I can tell that it's more than clear enough for a hook, so the shorter ALT1 is better. —Brandt Luke Zorn (talk) 20:27, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
 * And thank you, Brandt Luke Zorn. Like newspaper headlines, shorter hooks are usually better. I enjoy trying to craft snappier, "hookier" hooks. What we want is for readers to go to the article, and sometimes a little mystery can get more click-throughs! Edwardx (talk) 23:14, 14 September 2016 (UTC)


 * This cannot run on the day of the election.  E Eng  07:41, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Per consensus at WTDYK, hooks related to the US election are to be placed in the Special Holding area and run November 9 or later. — Maile  (talk) 12:35, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I'd be happy to abide that and go for November 9. I think that the embargo is a good idea to avoid politicization of DYK in a messy election period. That said, I see that there is talk of assessing DYK noms related to post-1932 US politics on a case-by-case basis in that discussion, and so I'd like to plead my case to put Diggler on the page on November 8, briefly and with no objection if you judge it would be wrong to do so. I think Diggler could be fun on that date for a few reasons:
 * Diggler, as a topic, avoids many of the politicization problems addressed in that discussion. Diggler is inherently a goof on American media, rather than a direct satire on American politics. There is a political perspective embodied within the satire, but it's not partisan between Clinton and Trump, which would seem to be the most necessary to avoid through the embargo. Rather, Diggler is a critique of the way media covers elections through "horse race" analysis and pompous appeals to authority/objectivity. Despite being about the primary elections, the hook does not mention any candidate, and is about the surprise that the writers behind a satirical character were able to guess more elections through dumb luck than a revered statistics blog. I'd also like to point out the extent to which the hook is limited to coverage of the primaries, which of course was significant to the presidential elections that will be held that day, but has passed in a definitive way and is not "about" a candidate or "about" politics the same way that, say, a hook about Dinesh D'Souza's Hillary's America or Clinton and Kaine's Stronger Together book would be.
 * To the extent that any reader might be expecting to see if any political topics are present on the main page on November 8, I think it would be amusing for them to see a sort of goofy topic only marginally related to the election itself — close enough to mark the date, but unproblematic and nonpartisan. That said, I can see that the embargo is intended to cover any topic "related to any ... candidate standing for ... federal office in the US General Election Nov 8, 2016, broadly construed," with ambiguities read in favor of November 9 or later, so should you read my argument as still falling within that ambiguity and you'd prefer to stick closely to the embargo, I'm happy to defer to the judgment expressed in the discussion. Anyway, thanks for hearing me out. —Brandt Luke Zorn (talk) 13:51, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid that since there's a substantial segment of the electorate now that can't absorb any concept that requires more than 7 words to express, we have to steer clear of anything that might be seen as commenting on or passing judgment on anything election-related, even inadvertently.  E Eng  14:00, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. November 9? —Brandt Luke Zorn (talk) 14:01, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, on Nov. 9 Trump will be sputtering that the election was rigged. Better wait until after Innauguration Day, or better yet until after Clinton's second term is over.  E Eng  14:21, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
 * lol. While we can agree the embargo is a good idea through the 8th, allowing Trump to politicize the remainder of all time at whim is probably not great policy. —Brandt Luke Zorn (talk) 20:02, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, I guess you and I can look back on this an laugh if we get adjacent cells at Guantanamo.  E Eng  21:16, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Complete review needed. Then put in the Special Holding area to run after the US November 8 elections. — Maile (talk) 13:51, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I think the hook needs to be changed as the methodology used by Digger in reporting the comparison is dubious. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:19, 20 October 2016 (UTC)


 * ALT2 ... that fictional journalist Carl Diggler claims to have correctly predicted more 2016 presidential primaries than Nate Silver's statistics blog FiveThirtyEight?
 * The wording of ALT1 is accurate: Carl 1) correctly 2) predicted (guessed, but all the same — "predict" as a word does not, by definition, require more rigor than "guess" and two are often synonymous) 3) more primaries. That third part is key: in an absolute sense, it is true regardless of how you slice it, the same way that Michael Phelps has won more gold medals than I have regardless of my sitting out of the Olympics.


 * The question you're raising is not whether Diggler predicted more contests, but whether more total correct guesses is a good measure of which predictor was "better." The dispute about "better" especially looks at how many absurd small contests Diggler predicted that Silver had principled reasons not to predict for lack of sound data — and of course, Diggler is not a reliable or scientific predictor in any meaningful sense. Of course Diggler's writers, as Diggler, do claim that he is a better predictor, but that's not what the hook is about.


 * The hook as rendered in ALT1 makes no claim about being better. To the extent this hook seems misleading or like a "trick," I would say it is no more so than necessary to gently surprise or intrigue a reader, before they read the article and realize the gentle "aha" of what is really going on. The hook does not say anything about which predictor is "better" in a larger sense, and thus does not implicate the question of methodology, reliability, etc.


 * I think adding the adjective "satirical" (or replacing "fictional" with "satirical") would clarify the stakes more than adding "claims to" (not to mention, Diggler is not a real person and thus can't claim anything, really.) —BLZ · talk 20:34, 20 October 2016 (UTC)


 * (apologies, during my last period of activity this template wasn't around yet so I forget to use it.) —BLZ · talk 18:35, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Symbol confirmed.svg This article is new enough and long enough. BLZ is very persuasive, and I am prepared to accept ALT1, which is cited inline. The article is neutral and the problems thrown up by Earwig all seem to be quotations. This is to be run after the US election. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:37, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Pulled from Queue3 after discussion at WT:DYK. Dubious "fact" only sourced to primary source, not to a reliable independent one. Fram (talk) 11:30, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Symbol delete vote.svg This has been open far too long, issues have not been addressed. If somebody comes by and fixes them before this is archives, well and good. Otherwise, thanks for a new article, but not everything is suitable for DYK. Vanamonde (talk) 13:47, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the late response, I'm in finals study mode and am not checking Wikipedia frequently. I have now linked to two reliable, independent, third-party sources that back up the specific claim that Diggler correctly called more primary outcomes than Silver's team. Many more sources on Diggler commented generally on the matchup between Silver and Diggler as a launching point, but take for granted the specific fact (number of primary outcomes accurately predicted by both) without reiterating it so that they can move onto other topics. I'd also like to note that this post has been open for so long because it was delayed until after the election due to the embargo on political DYKs, and not because of specific issues with the DYK itself (which have been addressed fairly promptly by me as they've arisen). —BLZ · talk 03:37, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Okay, thank you. I believe this is Symbol confirmed.svg GTG, based on previous reviews and my verification of the sources. Vanamonde (talk) 05:50, 30 November 2016 (UTC)